


cautiously but with intent

by lady_peony



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, M/M, Miscommunication, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: "I'm sure he has his reasons," Shuuichi had said once. That doesn't mean he necessarily knows what they are.





	

The ground beneath Shuuichi yields too easily as he crouches. The mud licks greedily at his knees, smears his fingers sweeping through the moss, the rain-matted leaves.

His hand pulls up what he recognizes as his class literature book. He flips past the cover with _The Uprooted Pine_ printed upon it; half of the characters weep down the page, ink and paper stained together. He pulls up a paper chain from the dirt. And further on. A stray calligraphy brush, lodged between two rocks.

Lucky he had not needed any of his storehouse scrolls with him today. Those would not have been easy to replace.

His jaw clenches. 

His hand fishes up the brush and he flinches as something cold strikes his neck. Looks up, realizes it must have been a lingering droplet from the roof's eaves.

He looks up a second time.

"If you value something," Seiji says, his spine a dark curve on the windowsill with the shutters pushed open, "you should keep it better hidden."

"Seiji," Shuuichi says. His fingers crinkle a chain of paper, soggy with water and thus, utterly unusable. "Go jump in a lake."

Everything, his bag and all, had been upturned onto the ground outside. That day's rain, recently-ended, had not helped with the damage. His supplies were not that expensive; still, when the gathering had ended, it had been more than slightly inconvenient that he could not find his bag under the bench where he had stowed it, near the rows and rows of shoes.

Shuuichi wonders if he would have preferred thumbtacks in his shoes instead.

"Well. What will you do if you find the culprits?" Contrary to Shuuichi's wishes, Seiji rolls off the windowsill, lands on the grass with a feline grace.

"What good would it do?" Shuuichi lets a little, just a little bitterness swell into his voice. "Would they care that I know? Would they stop? There is nothing that they would fear from me." 

_How much worth does the Natori name have now?_ Acknowledgement, yes, but what else beyond that?

Seiji picks an invisible blade of grass from his knee, brings his gaze to Shuuichi's eyes. "I see." His lip curls slightly and he taps his tongue once in his mouth. "That's how it is now, isn't it."

Shuuichi pulls his gaze from Seiji's face, not sure if he would prefer Seiji's sympathy or his scorn. He spots the last item he had been searching for; the mud and brown pottery had nearly blended into the shadow under the tree root.

Shoes squelching, Shuuichi turns away temporarily from Seiji. He extends his right hand towards the root, one knee bending slightly. 

Something catches on his finger. Shuuichi stops himself from flinching, pulls harder until the roots release the jar.

There's an open vein in its side, a noticeable break. Shuuichi slips the jar into his bag. Looks at his hand, feels the sting before he even sees the red beading up across his finger.

"Hey!" Shuuichi snaps, when a sudden hand snatches up his palm, pulling it up. Seiji's eyes are unerringly keen, moving to fasten themselves onto the site of the cut. 

Seiji's hand curls in for a moment. Opens. 

Shuuichi's own hand is cold. The mud stains crumbling from his fingertips, the pad of his thumb and the side of his palm, look even darker against Seiji's skin. Something of the heat from the indoors still lingers there, Shuuichi thinks; Seiji hadn't been sitting outside for long.

Shuuichi breathes, and the air, silvery and saturated green, rushes in.

Seiji's eyes dart up to Shuuichi's own. "Not the best idea to bleed here," he says, almost sharp as the air itself.

Shuuichi pulls back his shoulders, shakes his hand from Seiji's hold. "Thanks," Shuuichi says, "for that helpful advice."

"It'll be dark soon," Seiji says, "I'll be off." Before Shuuichi knows it, Seiji slips something into his hand, then leaps back up into the same window he had appeared from.

Gone, before Shuuichi can get the last word. Shuuichi stares at the wall, the vines swaying by the sides of the still open window.

Shuuichi opens his hand. Finds a rectangular shape resting within it—a bandaid.

 

—

 

It wasn't summer yet, Shuuichi knows. There were no chitters of cicadas, drifting through the gaps in the walls of rice paper and wood.

A mystery, why the room still felt so heated. Maybe he needed to open a window. Or find a fan.

There were no lights on. It didn't worry Shuuichi too much. He was used to darkness, after nights and nights of staying up to squint at scrolls, blowing out candle flames to hide shadows. 

Another four steps, a hesitant tread on floorboards.

The heat and dark, Shuuichi thinks, are thick enough that he could almost wind it through his fingers like a sheet.

He just needed another right turn before he reached his own bedroom. Or two more, perhaps. If tonight's nap wasn't enough, there was always the option of the nurse's office at school the next day. Missing a bit of history class might be the best opportunity for it. 

Odd. There were no sounds of anyone else's snores or sleep-even breaths. Not his father's, nor his grandfather's near-grumbling wheezes.

A thud echoes from a corner. 

Shuuichi freezes. He breathes out and inches forward a little more. _Was that a shadow moving?_

Shuuichi's heart thumps, faster and faster inside his chest until he could feel the shivers of it in his wrist, to his fingertips.

Would that be where the noise had come from?

His hand reaches out. Yanks at the hold of the door, slides it open so quickly he thinks there's a screech of tearing paper.

His father is on the floor. His face is frozen, unmoving, no twist of anger or suspicion or silent antipathy.

"You should have turned back."

A pale hand, translucent, around his father's throat.

"Because of you," his mother says, "we can never have peace."

Shuuichi cannot speak. His throat moves. Wordless. Useless.

He tries, tries to open his mouth, to beg, to plead—

His head twinges when he knocks it back against something solid.

The phantom heat lifts, but for the sweat on his brow, and the twisted knots in his stomach. He tries to remember the taste of air.

"Give me your hand."

Shuuichi doesn't think, knows the words have no air of a request about them. He thinks he feels his head nod.

Fingers snag his wrist, lightly, slides over the vein. Shuuichi hears the voice start counting to itself, soft, unhurried.

This was a surprise.

Shuuichi can't quite bear to open his eyes yet, to look at him in the face.

The thing behind his back seems steady. He lets himself lean into it, recognizes the smell of dry bark, mixed with something spicy-sweet. Some kind of fruit, he thinks, something familiar.

Shuuichi swallows, his mind reaching back, struggling for a grip on his memory. "Well. Who caught the prize?"

Some bounties were never officially assigned. Another figure had shown on the scene, Shuuichi recalls.

The counting stops. The fingertips still stay, the lightest pressure around Shuuichi's pulse.

"I had," Seiji says. He seems to release his next words with a certain light inflection. "You had run into some...difficulty, before the circle had time to reach full effect."

So it was just nightmares then. Shuuichi exhaled, eyes still closed. He had heard of worse difficulties.

Shuuichi's muscles ache. Not sure where. His shoulders, perhaps, his arms certainly. "Are you going to let go now?" 

He opens his eyes. 

Seiji is watching something else above them, up near the sky. Worried about rain? Shuuichi sees him draw his stare back down.

"Fine," Seiji says, "Thank you for your assistance this time." 

"Fine," Shuuichi echoes. "I'll expect half."

"Half?" 

"The bounty," Shuuichi points out.

"Ah. Half it is," Seiji says and peels his fingers away from Shuuichi's wrist.

The spicy-sweet scent strengthens. Shuuichi tips his head back and narrows his gaze, sees Seiji twist something off a branch, take a bite from the reddish fruit in hand.

The boughs above Shuuichi's head have no leaves. Yet each one droops with persimmons, colored deep and rich as sunset.

Seiji looks at Shuuichi, like he's expecting Shuuichi to ask for something else.

"Is that safe?" Shuuichi mutters, watching Seiji swallow another bite, "You don't know who—or what—grew this tree."

Seiji finishes the last bite, drops the stem on the ground. "I was just hungry. I'll bring your share soon, when I get it." He steps away from the overhang of the tree.

A honey-thick scent rises from the ground, from the crushed fruit after his footsteps.

Shuuichi stands shortly after. Slips his hands into his pockets when an icy breeze cuts through, pulling more persimmons to the ground.

 

—

 

Shuuichi keeps walking three, four more steps after he hears someone call his name. Stops and turns, makes sure he is smiling as he does so.

"Koyasu-san. Were you asking about me?"

"Merely to give congratulations," Koyasu says, "It had been two battling ayakashi you sealed last time, wasn't it? Not easy for someone so young." With a sweep of dark hair and delicate-carved features, Koyasu had a look not unlike those of a male model, grinning from a magazine page. 

"That," Shuuichi says, "wasn't anything so worthy of praise. I was lucky to be fighting on familiar territory, was all."

"Of course," Koyasu agrees obligingly. "Natori-san. You aren't training with anyone else right now, are you?"

"Not at the moment, no." 

"Well then, one as talented as you shouldn't have to forge on alone, wouldn't you say? My last apprentice was absolutely useless. Would you consider taking up his place instead?"

Shuuichi smiles, leans in a little in a half-bow. "What a request, Koyasu-san! I have a ways to go for my skills before I can match your own." Shuuichi straightens up. "If I may ask, did you not have a shiki with you last time? With small antlers and the green robe?"

"Last time? Ah, that one," Koyasu says, his brow furrowing. "Unfortunate business. She couldn't handle an encounter with a Nigawarai. The claws, you see. And using antidote for a shiki—that would be a waste." 

If Urihime had come today, Shuuichi is not sure what he would have asked her to do. Nothing too pleasant for Koyasu, he suspects.

"Why the questions on shiki?" Koyasu tilts his head towards Shuuichi, and despite the ease in his smile, his gaze has a touch of flint.

"I may have been looking for some advice," Shuuichi says, "on a matter of contracts. But it can wait for next time." Shuuichi slips around Koyasu-san before there is an answer, shoulders past a circle of other exorcists.

In the hall, Shuuichi stops, draws the door shut behind him. Stares down both ways, sees no one else, before he presses himself to a spot next to a hanging scroll, red and white hibiscuses twined on silk. 

He closes his eyes, tries to summon the way to the entrance in his mind. The lizard tracking around his neck doesn't help. Shuuichi feels it crawl lower, somewhere near his ribs. 

A quiet press of a footstep creaks from the floor. 

Shuuichi opens his eyes, irritated at the interruption. "I'm just about to go on my way now—oh. You."

"Natori." The floor hushes; near-silence save from the quiet whispers, insinuations floating from the gathering room. "Shuuichi-san."

Dark hair, and a rising pale hand. A crescent smile slinks out, under the white mask pushed upwards from the face. The mask is grinning as well.

"Leaving now, when others speak so well of you?"

"I don't play well with others," Shuuichi says, the words more brittle than he means to. He looks at Seiji, tamps down the urge to flinch at the white paper hanging over half of his face. How Seiji could see from beneath the paper and the mask was not something Shuuichi could understand. "I'm on my way out," Shuuichi continues, a hand sliding off his glasses into his bag, "And I don't want to speak with anyone else right now, so if you could just let me go—"

"I heard."

Seiji moves, so swiftly that Shuuichi has no time to react before something falls over his face.

The mask is less heavier than he expected.

A smell of wood, light, lemon-scented. The mask is warm, where it presses against his cheeks, his brow.

The part where it swells a little for the mouth is warm too—or that was just Shuuichi's own breath from his lips.

"The payment?" Shuuichi asks. On the back of his neck, he feels string tightening in his hair, Seiji's fingers slowly knotting the ends.

"This? A loan." Seiji's voice brushes just past his ear, a bare inch from Shuuichi's shoulder. Between the quiet of the hall and the murmurs of the other room, Seiji's words seem to echo, stretch longer. "Bring it back undamaged. You could bring your own disguise, next time." 

Finally, Shuuichi feels fingers lift, lightly, lightly from his hair.

Shuuichi does manage to leave, without needing to speak with any others that he sees on the way.

Seiji's face is not surprised the next time when Shuuichi shoves the mask back at him. "Thanks," Shuuichi says, "but I'm not someone who thinks hiding away is useful."

 

—

 

Shuuichi almost wishes he had worn a disguise this time. Something like Hiiragi's mask, for instance.

Not just to hide his face; Shuuichi admits that it can get tiring, having to watch everyone else, to track flickers of interest, of distaste, of reined resentment. 

He can also admit that now that both of them are in the same room, Shuuichi doesn't know what his own face will show.

The Matoba head doesn't look his best. His eye is sharp, as is his posture. But the shadows under his eye are recognizable, and his smile shows too much teeth to pass as amiable.

It's a look Shuuichi has seen on his own face before, right after back to back assignments or finishing the last interview of a late-night channel. The best lighting could only do so much. 

Shuuichi checks his watch. The meeting had ended near ten minutes ago and most of his peers had already left the room.

Matoba takes a step back from where he had been standing. Leans over a bit to issue orders to the masked servants at his side. Humans both, Shuuichi is pretty sure. Both servants stroll forward, step around Shuuichi and are gone.

Shuuichi himself should be going as well. A meeting on a new assignment, though the one who hired him has been whispered to have a sharp tongue which dismissed two others before him. 

A soft creak when Matoba settles himself into a chair, places a stack of papers on the desk there. 

"Hey." Right as the word leaves his mouth, Shuuichi grimaces internally.

But it has its effect, as Matoba looks up.

Shuuichi's hand reaches into his pocket, withdraws the can. It's sure to be room temperature now, and the beverage may be too sweet to taste good. It did come from a vending machine, after all.

He walks forward. Forces himself to keep his shoulders loose, his chin up. A rustle, from the movement of Matoba's sleeve or the paper in Shuuichi's own pocket. He ignores it.

He lets the can lower from his fingers. Right near the center of the table, skids to a stop by Matoba's left hand. The faint thud as it lands is unexpectedly loud.

Shuuichi's hand rests on the drink a moment, not sure if he should take it away or to leave it.

Matoba's hand lifts and Shuuichi pulls his own hand back, in a somewhat clumsy movement.

"You can, uh, drink that," Shuuichi says, gestures vaguely at the can on the desk.

He looks, sees Matoba's hand curling around the drink. 

"Is that all?" Matoba asks. A silence after his question, like something else should be in that space.

"Yes. Bye." Shuuichi spins around and pulls himself towards the door. His head up. Eyes forward.

Matoba's glance on his back; a strange, marked pressure. A target, Shuuichi thinks, and he's never missed before, you know that. 

Shuuichi yanks the door shut behind him.

He has no reason for running, a part of him whispers. There was no hidden meaning in his action for Matoba to read.

It was only a coffee. 

That was all it was.

**Author's Note:**

> *[Nigawarai](http://yokai.com/nigawarai/) means _bitter smile_
> 
> *Title from this [poem](http://sunrisesongs.tumblr.com/post/144787548992/i-said-i-want-you-to-hold-me-the-way-you-would-a) by sunrisesongs


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